Nakamura Masters Hong Kong

Sunday, October 20, 2013

huhei Nakamura is your Grand Prix: Hong Kong champion! Tied a win each against Martin Juza, the deciding game involved a 7/6 Agent of Horizons providing the finishing touches to an otherwise stalled board. This victory marks his 6th Grand Prix title, which means he is now tied for second (with Yuuya Watanbe).

Shuhei soon added Prescient Chimera and Wavecrash Triton to his board and his flyers begun to work on Yusheng's life total. Yusheng attempted one final alpha strike with Portent of Betrayal stealing the Triton and Coordinated Assault targeting the merfolk to trigger the creature tap but could only manage to deal four more damage before Shuhei's larger creatures closed the game.

Lei Yu Sheng

Yusheng started game two on the backfoot having to take a mulligan, but still managed to deal 14 damage over the course of the game.

Game Three

Unable to penetrate the defenses on land, Juza added Insatiable Harpy to the board and took to the skies, while defending with Keepsake Gorgon. That seemed like a great strategy but none was more effective than keeping your opponent off his second color. Lu was very unfortunately stuck on four Plains, holding a fistful of red cards he could not utilize.

The haymaker came on the next turn when Takahashi summoned Phalanx Leader and cast Chosen by Heliod on it, granting +1/+1 counters to all his creatures, including a freshly created Soldier token. Takahashi followed up that play with Time to Feed, targeting Phalanx Leader once more to shoot down the Numbus Naiad.

Horizon Scholar did little to impede the wave of attackers and Ng scooped up his cards.

Ordeal of Nylea met with Annul but that seemed very inconsequential compared to the Hopeful Eidolon which Takashi would bestow upon the hero. That allowed Takahashi to attack with three of his untapped lands, threatening lethal damage along with the gigantic fox.

The Giant become monstrous while Denny brought out his own guns in a 9/9 Mistcutter Hydra

Denny held the edge for only a very short moment, however, as Ken soon found his Sip of Hemlock and summoned his own 9/9 Mistcutter Hydra to close out the game.

Denny Dunsford

Denny went the beatdown plan in the second game with an early Boon Satyr on Felhide Minotaur. A crucial Lash of the Whip during combat kept Ken on the back foot and ensured the Minotaur and his supporting cast went the distance.

From there, Ken took over by sacrificing the Hart for the two mana acceleration to power out a 7/7 Mistcutter Hydra and monstrous Fleecemane Lion to win the game and match.

Yukuhiro, Ken wins 2-1 and moves to the Semi-Finals.

Semifinals - Martin Juza vs. Yuuta Takahashi

by Chapman Sim

Game One

Martin Juza quickly claims game one after a gambit by his opponent went wrong. Takahashi mulled over his opening hand and decided to keep a one-lander but failed to draw his second for three turns. That caused him to be on the receiving end of a quick beatdown in the form of Blood-Toll Harpy and Erebos's Emissary.

Well, by the time he drew his second land, he was down to just five life and there was little he could do to recover from the missed land drops once Juza suited up one of his creatures with Observant Alseid.

Martin Juza 1 – Yuuta Takahashi 0

Game Two

Yuuta Takahashi was plagued with mana problems once again and he quickly lost to Juza's aggressive deck. Juza started with the first of this three Tormented Heroes and Takahashi forced to "cycle" Chosen by Heliod on it, turning it into a 2/3 in the proceess.

When Takahashi tried to trade, Juza was ready with Boon of Erebos. Hero's Downfall put the final nail in the coffin when Juza denied him of his 4th mana, while sacrificing the Ordeal to "Mind Rot" Yuuta Takahashi.

In this case, Takahashi's Downfall...

Martin Juza 2 – Yuuta Takahashi 0

Martin Juza defeats Yuuta Takahashi to advance to the finals, where he will play Shuhei Nakamura!

Semifinals - Shuhei Nakamura vs. Ken Yukuhiro

by Noel Neo

With Ken's plenitude of bomb rares, Shuhei knows he has to close out the game before they can come online. Hence, from being the defender in the previous match against Yu Sheng, Shuhei now has to morph into the aggressor.

And morph he did. Feral Invocation on Horizon Chimera allowed Shuhei to take game one in four attacks with Ken not drawing the removal he needed to interact with the flyer.

Juza could only offer up Keepsake Gordon and Insatiable Harpy, none of which were reliable ways to stabilize the board within the next two turns. Juza did have Scholar of Athreos to stay alive for another turn, but Nakamura revealed Feral Invocation from his hand for exactly lethal damage.

Erebos's Emissary soon joined the board and it seemed like Nakamura was the victim of a terrible draw, seeing how he had failed to cast anything even by turn five, other than bouncing some of Juza's creatures with Voyage's End and Griptide.

Martin Juza delivering the beatdown.

After relieving himself of the pressure, Nakamura proceeded to resolve a trio of his Prescient Chimera, but Juza tried to keep up the pressure by bestowing the bounced Erebos's Emissary. Hanging at just one life, Nakamura was unable to attack, preferring to flood the board with a couple more blockers just to be safe.

Top 5 Cards of GP Hong Kong

Voted the card most wished for by the Pros, Elspeth is the planeswalker you either take down quickly or are overwhelmed by. Best known in Limited for her ability to generate soldiers, the entire round 9 match between Shuhei Nakamura and Li Bo hinged on who could get Elspeth to stick. And that hasn't even included a consideration of her ability to destroy creatures power 4 or greater, which Shouta Yasooka used to great effect against Shuhei in round 11, or the admittedly rarely used Glorious Anthem on steroids.

A 3/3 flyer in Blue has always been a pretty high draft pick and Prescient Chimera trumps that on all counts. The additional point of toughness matters in a format with Lightning Strike and the conditional scry ability is pure gravy. More than simply looking at the top card of your library, the ability to sort what is likely to be excess lands and unneeded cards to the bottom of your library provides 'virtual card advantage'. Just ask Shuhei Nakamura, whose Grand Prix winning deck included three copies of the Chimera that featured in each of his winning matches.

A 4/5 body for 2BG, scry, death touch and hexproof; what's not to like? It works especially well in the archetype defined by its colours – providing an early wall against attacks, improving your card quality over the game of attrition and finally providing a hexproof body for creature enhancers to close the game. Reaper enabled Taku Matsumura to stall against Yuuya Watanabe's RG beatdown deck long enough for him to assume the lead in round 10 and in round 3 provided Andrew Cantilla with an untargetable body against a Blue deck.

There are a number of removal spells in Theros but none are as efficient or versatile as Lightning Strike. While it can't deal with large creatures like Sip of Hemlock or Lash of the Whip, its low cost enables it to quickly trade up for many of Theros's scariest creatures. This efficiency makes it such a coveted asset that many pros single it out as the best common of the set, even going as far as splashing Red simply to run copies of the instant.